


smiling fights the lonely monster

by failsafe



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:06:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4266069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running away together sounds a lot more romantic than impromptu sleepovers in the woods involving Laura's friends, but Carmilla has to take what she can get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	smiling fights the lonely monster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilcoyotepupcutie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilcoyotepupcutie/gifts).



 

The notion of leaving Silas University behind for good certainly isn't one she'd object to. Like many other places she's been, it's tainted now. Her long life has taken her so many places and she's seen so many things, but among them there are the familiar – the haunted – that are like stepping through layer upon layer of double- and triple-exposed film. Familiar passages that form large spirals, all making their way back to one particular place where she sleeps and lies in wait when she isn't out being sweet and sharp in strategic, boringly familiar ways to lure yet another girl in. She imagines them like bright, glinting red pins stuck in a map of the world, connected by further lengths of red string. She imagines the tweed-clad man sucking on a pipe standing before the map, trying to puzzle out the trail and its looping repetition, its occasional broad deviations, like a macabre puzzle.

What happens to the girls beneath all the red pins?

Where have they all gone? 

Meanwhile, right before his eyes another delicate loop forms around one of the pins. 

Another girl  _ lost _ , another girl turned to name on a file, to puzzle piece, unknown. 

All the while, she puzzles them, puzzles  _ her _ out, too. Only for her, it isn't questions and mystery. It's flesh and soul and she knows she's solved each and every piece except for  _ one _ by the time she's through. The piece that makes them  _ matter _ . She knows better. Once was enough, never again. 

It's hard to believe that life is over. She can just walk away. 

Better, she can run. She can run, right behind another girl who matters. A girl who has a chance now – to live, to be less and to be more than another trail of blood marking the much more gruesome, illustrated map Carmilla carries around in her head, somewhere deeper than the drab, Doyle scene she's constructed in her mind's eye.

Waking up after days of being more dead than she generally is, she finds that her mind is much less surely anchored than usual. It wanders and creates useless flights of fancy without her consent. Part of her wants to blame it on Laura – after they've run away, after they've found somewhere else to be. 

She'll go with her anywhere, somewhere far away from here. 

She'll  _ leave for Reading Week  _ and  **never** come back. 

No more constant lying, finally some warmth and touch and being  _ known _ again. 

There's only one problem with that beautiful, romantic idea. 

It comes in a pair, a matched set with vaguely reddish hair. That particular detail is one that has escaped her attention due to lack of interest. Laura's friends. 

Laura's friends. Leaving Silas University is a plan Carmilla has no problem getting behind; leaving it with Laura's friends is not. 

\- - - 

Traveling the world with someone does not mean she has to like them. Carmilla finds her resolve before they have picked their way to the outskirts of campus. Like the other strange things she's done during the past month, she can do this for Laura. 

Entirely too conscientious of cleanliness for some of the obstacles they face in leaving the campus by the most direct route, picking through the wet undergrowth in a thick treeline, Perry is the first to remind Carmilla why even such tenuous alliances with ordinary people can be such a liability. The shriek that rings out into the jarring, seismically active night on the campus is certainly enough to draw any and all unwanted attention right to them. Reflexes fast, for a vampire only returned to consciousness a few hours before with a serious lack of blood in her system, Carmilla turns only about as fast as LaFontaine is. In fractions of a second before LaFontaine catches their best friend's arm as her foot slides down into a dip beneath a gnarled root, Carmilla finds that her hand has steadied Perry first. 

A few shrill breaths that might be attempts at screams or at words later, Perry is waving an arm before Carmilla's face in a way that indicates some attempt at communication. One of Carmilla's nostrils ticks upward unintentionally as she glances over her, trying to discern any scent or sight of blood. There is none, and she's so starved still she's certain she'd notice. 

“I got you, Per, come on,” LaFontaine says, taking Perry's other arm. Carmilla is fairly certain there is an attempt at eye contact as they move past with Perry. She shifts her own gaze toward Laura. Instead of her back, the long shiny length of her lighter hair, she meets her eyes. Laura is biting down on her lip, wiggling it just a little between teeth as she pats a thin tree trunk. 

“She's okay?” Laura asks before she gets moving again. She doesn't seem to know how to stay with an alliance for only as long as it suits her. Carmilla sees it in the way she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, always a little further forward, a little more like she's going to keep running, but she won't go until LaFontaine gives her a nod. 

“I'm fine! I'm fine,” Perry says as she lets LaFontaine support her weight for a few steps and then tries to take a little more of it on her own. “This is just... terribly inappropriate footwear for this sort of—”

“Do you think it might be a little more _inappropriate_ for you to continue squeaking about your outfit?” Carmilla sighs, trying not to be too _biting_. She could afford to be a lot more. The sooner they have Silas put well behind them, the better. Then she can really think about what she's going to do with them. 

Another look at Laura – not hurt them, definitely not hurt them. 

\- - - 

“Would it... really kill you to help set up this campfire thing? Surely you're better than it me. Years of experience before electric light,” LaFontaine rambles toward Carmilla as they try to arrange lengths of mostly dry wood. The campus is a half-day's hike behind them now, and in the dark the humans want to sleep. It's a terrible idea, but Laura looks so tired that Carmilla doesn't try to insist. When LaFontaine speaks to her, she's seated close to her with her legs crossed and folded beneath her. Her fingertips are just barely ghosting through the soft but slightly sweaty, tangled strands of Laura's hair. The touch is so soft that it felt like it might not be real. 

The interruption isn't welcome and is met with a cool narrowing of Carmilla's eyes. 

“Historically, vampires and fire... not a good match.” 

“Ah. Funny,” LaFontaine says with a slight nod. Another piece of the wood falls over from the pile. 

“Building a pyre... sounds like _lots of fun_ ,” Carmilla adds, not sure what encourages her. 

“Like I said: funny,” LaFontaine returns. Maybe the conversation had provided a break from concentration that was too deep to allow success in the fire building effort, or something like that – Carmilla isn't paying close enough attention to anything but Laura's hands fidgeting in her lap to know the exact progression that leads to sparks flickering to life into a fire. 

She sighs and tilts her head toward LaFontaine. 

“How cutting,” she says. 

“I'm not trying to be?” LaFontaine replies, half a question with raised eyebrows. 

Carmilla isn't sure how to respond to that. Until now, she's been under the impression that Laura's friends feel a certain distaste for her, no matter what they've done that happens to have benefited her. She's been under the impression that the feeling has been mutual. Now she realizes that this might have been LaFontaine's attempt at an only slightly pointed joke. 

“Like I said, you're funny,” LaFontaine says. Then they crane their neck with a tilt of their head to meet Laura's eyes. 

Beside her, Laura straightens and takes a deep breath in. She sounds so tired, and Carmilla suddenly just wants her to sleep. She isn't sure what  _ Laura's friend _ is about to say. 

“No offense,” LaFontaine adds dryly. 

“Nope. She's hilarious,” Laura agrees with a hum-yawn. “Warm,” she comments about the fire. 

“Are you okay, Laura?” Perry asks with a note of over-earnest slight panic in her voice. 

“Yeah, fine. Just... tired. And glad to be _far_ away from school...” 

“We're never going to go back,” Perry says. When Carmilla turns her head, she sees that Perry's eyes are fixed forward on the gently growing flame. Her breathing is deep and deliberate. 

“It's not that bad,” Carmilla says, matter-of-factly. She doesn't know why she speaks at all, but it seems to flow freely. There's no agenda here, but it almost feels like champagne has loosened her tongue. 

“Of course it's terrible!” Perry says, as distinct and deliberate as the breaths she draws. “I came here to get an education, to make a few friends, to enjoy the beautiful, old campus and now...” 

“Think you might be rose-colored-glasses-ing there, Perry,” LaFontaine interjects. 

“I'm not! I know who I am, S—” 

Even Carmilla tenses a little. Perry stops, though. She doesn't understand the compulsion to call someone by the name of someone they never were, even of someone they used to be. Her own name is a matter of perspective, of time, of dots and drops of blood and a few tears, scattered across a map. 

“What should we call you?” she asks. She thinks it's a little mean, maybe. She's more than a little certain when Laura straightens her spine again and turns to look at her. She doesn't check her eyes to confirm or deny her suspicions, but at least Laura doesn't move away from her. She straightens one of her legs and wiggles her ankle a little, watching the way it moves her boot. She stretches out, leaning back a little against the heels of her hands. Finally, she looks up to find Perry's eyes to finish her line of questioning, sly in a way that feels like a stage performance. She wonders if Perry ever feels that way, too. “Now that you're someone else.” 

“Excuse me?” Perry asks softly. She thinks she's trying to sound affronted, but Carmilla has spoken to many an affronted girl, and even in her curt, breathless way, Perry doesn't seem to be among them for now. She keeps staring back at her. 

“What name do you want to be called now? If it would _help_ you to readjust... since you're not a _student_ now and not going to spearhead a _bake sale_ free from any ritual sacrifices.” 

“Hey. Look, I get... what I _think_ you're trying to do here, but I... I really don't need it,” LaFontaine interjects, reaching over to lift a hand in a gesture of peace at Carmilla's face. She notices it out of the corner of her eye and dismisses it with a little shake of her head. 

“I'm asking her,” she insists. “It does help... sometimes. To be someone different. It's _not_ that different, though. It... always turns out... the way you want it to,” she says. 

“Wow,” Laura says. 

The little exclamation makes Perry blink and glance at her friend sitting tucked shoulder to shoulder with Carmilla, but the conversation still seems between them. 

“I... I think Perry's fine,” she says in something just a little more crisp than a mumble. 

“I'm just saying. Something to think about. It's not...” Carmilla says, then she glances up. The canopy of trees above is like murky, navy fingertips reaching up to cross out the sky, marks on an exhausted map of something other than the lives she's stolen and left empty. A map of stars leading somewhere, taking them away from that life, even if she's never invited anyone else to come along. Not really. But she's here, and that counts. 

“... not that different,” Laura says, not even asking if it's the way the sentence ends. She just asserts that it does, and when Carmilla looks down to look at her she can't help but give a very slight but confused nod. 

“Not that different,” Laura repeats with a quick, tight smile. There's something melancholy to it, which is rare, but Carmilla trusts that it isn't despair and so it doesn't frighten her. If anything, knowing that something can give Laura that kind of pause in her optimism that isn't as deep and dark and red as death is a little endearing. 

“You're saying I'm not that different from your friends?” she asks, head moving in a way that isn't quite shaking it or tilting it side to side in a singsong-mockery sort of way. It's softer, subtler than that. 

“You... are. One of them. And... I think.... maybe more, but... you're one of us now, Carm.” 

No one says anything for a long moment. For a little while there, they are all just breathing and being warmed by a central fire that doesn't spread out beyond its bounds the way it might if this were going to turn out to be a disaster. Carmilla almost trusts it. Almost. 

“Lovely,” she says smoothly in her usual, droll way. Rather than moving away, her forehead leans in to gently touch against Laura's – a little more solid and real than the touch of fingertips through beautiful but technically very dead strands of hair. “I think you and your _human_ friends need to get some sleep...” 

“And you're going to be our nocturnal protector?” Laura says, voice lilting playfully. 

“If I must. Not sure I like the title... but...”

Carmilla's lips turn up with a very light, nonthreatening show of her teeth. 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed your gift! The Laura/Carmilla is definitely there and acknowledged, but since you left a lot of room in your prompt I kind of wanted to do something exploring Carmilla slowly learning to do a bit more than tolerate Laura's friends - to at least suggest the potential of it there. The title is from [here](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=32).


End file.
